


Of Course

by peppermintlegs



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, another soulmate au for the pile, haha I tried to make this angsty but alas, these silly boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 13:31:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9738554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peppermintlegs/pseuds/peppermintlegs
Summary: Soulmate AU where the words on you are what your soulmate says when you realize they're your soulmate.“Many of the sentences that you hear and utter are novel; they have never been uttered before.”Mihalicek, Vedrana, and Christin Wilson.Language Files: Materials for an Introduction into Language and Linguistics. The Ohio State University, 2011.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nurseydcx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nurseydcx/gifts).



Nursey takes a linguistics class his first semester at Samwell, and he’s told that the odds of someone saying to him verbatim what’s written on the side of his ribs are incredibly slim, and the odds of two people telling him that are practically impossible.

The  _ of course _ in neat letters begs to differ.

* * *

 

He hears it twice, three times a day now. Ever since middle school, when he and his friends learned their sarcasm, his ears have been pricked up for the words, zeroing in on them. He waits on tenterhooks for the moment someone says it to him and he’s hit with the realization like a whack on the side of the head. 

It never happens,  _ of course _ . What good would it be to be stuck with someone from high school for the rest of his life anyway? 

Nursey’s only a little superstitious, but Samwell feels right. 

He’s an only child and his only cousins live in California. Nursey has never had to share a room for more than one night at a time. All the boys at Andover were either rich or brilliant or talented, sometimes even two of the three. They were all insufferable, even Shitty, even himself. 

Not as insufferable as the loudmouthed ginger kid he’s paired up with on defense, though.

_ Ugh _ . They call him Dex, and Nursey is surprised his ears fit under his helmet. He’s conservative, apparently. Shitty sets him straight on the misogyny and homophobia the first time he makes a comment at team breakfast. Nursey’s surprised, actually. The fact that this boy has made it through almost two decades without anyone telling him, hey, maybe don’t dehumanize half the population, is honestly astonishing. Nursey resigns himself to working with him only as much as he needs to, not making their relationship anything more than the professional courtesy of teammates.

* * *

 

Dex has been pissed about his soulmark since it showed up in fifth grade. He’d done a project a year before that mapped out their families a couple generations back, so he knows full well that his family isn’t fucking Irish. Lots of people have red hair and freckles! Leave him alone!

He didn’t anticipate how much of a fucking  _ issue _ it would be, though. He faces the brunt of the teasing around St. Patrick’s Day every year. Eighth grade rolled around and the prettiest girl in his class sat next to him at lunch that day. She shook out her long brown hair over one shoulder when she turned to look at him, and Dex’s heart leapt into his throat. She asked him, smiling and plain as day, “Are you Irish?” while she batted her eyelashes. 

Dex gulped, couldn’t find words. He nodded instead.

He was expecting a kiss on the cheek or a shy giggle or  _ something _ that definitely wasn’t a solid pinch on his arm while she dashed away, screeching with laughter, back to her friends. 

It bruised his arm but his ego hurt worse.

Anyway. Dex has been pissed about St. Pat’s for a while. It only adds to it that he’s apparently going to realize he’s in love or whatever with his soulmate that day. Goddamn it.

* * *

 

Other people’s soulmates are none of anyone else’s business. Everyone’s got their mark in the same spot: down the side of their ribs like a barcode, in that careful typewriter lettering. Locker room etiquette dictates that your eyes just kinda skip over it, no matter how mundane or specific the words may be.

So Nursey  _ knows _ that Dex’s words are “are you Irish,” and it’s common knowledge that Nursey’s are  _ of course _ —they star in his poems a lot. The same way it’s commonly known but universally not-mentioned that Jack’s got  _ Mr. Zimmermann _ down his side and Ransom’s mark is just  _ BRO _ , in all caps, just like that.

Even Bitty is one of those never-shirtless bros and Nursey knows that his mark is a whole long part, even if it’s for some reason just a fragment,  _ and then the Schooners and Falconers reached the playoffs, _ like some bridge between the chapters of a fairy tale.

But after the first semester, things start to back off. Nursey resigns himself to waiting patiently, with the knowledge that it’s not supposed to be something he can will into happening. He bickers with Dex and flirts with Chowder and watches Bitty get more and more frantic with his baking. 

Nursey makes it through his whole birthday without incident. Chowder gets a shutout, so he and the frogs lurk late at the Haus, reveling in their win. They’re getting along well for once, Dex not saying anything stupid or really doing anything worthy of chirping. (If Nursey were hard-pressed he could always harass Dex about his ears, but it’s been such a good day that it doesn’t feel worth the trouble.)

They’re pleasantly warm, the frogs, with a few beers each in them, tossed onto the Haus couch and all piled together like puppies. Chowder gets up to help Bitty serve a couple celebratory pies, so Nursey ends up falling over mostly onto Dex’s side, the two of them layered like playing cards. Dex is warm and freckly, humming a little with his eyes shut. Nursey hums in contentment too, happy to have friends he can be warm with.

Buzzed on cheap beer and further drunkened by the warm fuzzies, Nursey smacks his lips and announces apropos of nothing, “This is my favorite birthday so far,” as he nuzzles his face into the dip of Dex’s waist.

Dex lolls his head around and ends up thunking it on the arm of the couch. “Today? Really? Valentine’s Day?”

Nursey nods, making the hem of Dex’s shirt ride up a little. The skin of his hip is warm on Nursey’s chin, and Nursey has the sudden impulse to brush his jaw along the expanse. He doesn’t because he’s too busy asking his brain what the fuck was up with that thought. “Yeah. ‘S not like I can help it, man. Chill about it.”  _ Whoops _ .

“Of course,” Dex groans, sitting up and dislodging Nursey from the couch altogether. “Of  _ course _ .” He scoots over to let Chowder on the couch.

Handing him a plate, Chowder asks, “Why is Dex of course-ing?” It happens more than rarely, really.

Nursey pulls himself back onto the couch and takes the plate Chowder gives him. “Because today? Is my birthday.” He digs into the strawberry pie with gusto.

Dex repeats, “Of  _ course _ .”

Chowder’s face lights up, his braces flashing. Bitty overhears from the kitchen and starts fussing about how he would have made Nursey his favorite pie, had he known, but Nursey is preoccupied by the weird flutter in his stomach at Dex’s words, at the fondness he feels when Dex shovels half his piece of pie into his mouth in one bite, at the warmth that spreads to his fingers and up his neck when Dex rolls his eyes at him and chases a crumb from the corner of his mouth.

The words zipping through his head in reaction to those particular thoughts are neither poetic nor chill. Nursey pushes himself out of the couch, fighting the sagging cushions and nearly falling onto the TV. “Uh, actually,” he starts babbling, “I just remembered I’ve got like, an eight-page paper due next week and I don’t have any of it written, and this might be my only free night, so I should,” he’s in the kitchen by now, shoving the rest of his pie into his mouth, “I should go start that.”

No one mentions that it’s nearly midnight on a Saturday. Nursey bundles up and heads back to his dorm, head down against the frigid wind and panicking.

Well, this is a fucking treat. Nursey’d just gotten on good terms with Dex and now he’s gonna fuck it all to hell with this dumb crush. Of course. Of fucking—

“Hell,” Nursey says out loud, to nothing but the cold night air. “Oh, hell in a handbag.”  _ Of course _ . 

It could be a coincidence. Nursey’d had a crush on a boy back at Andover who had held the door open for him, and when Nursey muttered a thank you, he’d said all charming, “of course,” and Nursey’s heart had fluttered and he’d been on cloud nine for a few weeks, till it got through the grapevine that the boy’s soulmark was some long string of what turned out to be French. First person, with feminine inflection. Definitely not Nursey.

So, yeah. Nursey won’t mention anything, won’t tease Dex about his red hair anymore. At least, not in any way that’ll lead him to Dex’s soulmark. He’ll pine quietly and no one’ll be any the wiser. No harm, no foul, no broken hearts.

* * *

 

Things are fine. Dex and Chowder pick up on Nursey’s weirdness but he manages to pass it off as cabin fever and stress over a poetry thing. Sure, he might go to sleep every night wishing for a certain someone’s arms to be wrapped around him, and maybe most mornings when he wakes up he wishes there was someone there to press a kiss to his head and tell him to take an extra five minutes to rest. But it’s fine. It’s chill. It’s not a thing. 

_ Not a thing _ , what kind of English major is he.

Spring rolls up in its roundabout way, the sun shining a little more and the ground freezing a little less, but there’s still a bite to the air and not even the LAX bros are dumb enough to break out the basketball shorts just yet. Holster and Ransom are chomping at the bit for a kegster, but practice and the playoff tournament are taking up most of the team’s time.

“Bro,” Holster announces to admittedly many a bro at team breakfast, “tonight, this grand night of nights, we get schwasted in celebration of that grand—”

“You said grand already,” Ransom interrupts.

Holster waves a half-eaten breakfast sausage at him. “That grand, uh, that  _ majestic _ Saint of Saints, Saint Patrick. We drink to his martyrful memory and honor him with soda bread, hearty stew—for protein, Cap—and, ah, fuck, I’m outta adjectives. Rans, help a bro?”

“Soda bread, hearty stew, and the elixir of the Irish people: Guinness and Bailey’s and Jameson!” Ransom toasts his coffee mug to Holster, who solemnly clinks his glass of orange juice to it. “Bitty’s got the stew set up in the crock pot, so this evening, join us for merriment and revelry at the Haus!” The table roars with muted cheers, much to the chagrin of the entire rest of Samwell’s student body.

* * *

 

Dex is on Nursey Patrol tonight, which means one (1) beer and at least two (2) carb-based foodstuffs to soak up the alcohol. He’s nursing a Guinness in a  _ green _ Solo cup in one hand and a chunk of soda bread in the other, alternating bites and sips and keeping half an eye on Nursey.

Nursey has had three shots of Jameson and one and a half Irish Car Bombs. He is half a beer away from dancing on tabletops and promptly falling off aforementioned tabletops and dying, probably. He catches sight of Dex across the room and shuffle-slides over, maybe trying to dance but definitely not achieving it.

“Heeeey, Dexy boy,” he croons, tipping his head around. “You having a good time?”

Dex doesn’t honor that with a response. To Nursey’s drunk brain, it’s extremely cute. His drunk brain makes a connection that his sober brain is too slow to stop. Nursey reaches out a clumsy hand to rest it on Dex’s head. 

“I like your hair. ‘S bright, like...like red pen. You look like a graded essay, bro.” He giggles. “You look like one of my shit essays all marked up and red and white,” Nursey pauses to laugh harder, clearly finding the image amusing. Dex does not find it amusing. He does like the pressure of Nursey’s hand in his hair, however. Feels nice.

“Your essays probably don’t get marked up all that much,” Dex says awkwardly, trying to move the conversation away from terrible similes. “Since you’re so good at writing.”

Nursey shakes his head, clears his throat, reaches for Dex’s beer but Dex pulls it away. “That poetry shit isn’t fuckin’ essays, man. Prof says I’m too vague. Whassat even mean, anyways? ‘S not like he gave me any other like...response? What is it?” He peers at the ground, trying to remember the word.

“Feedback?” Dex offers.

“Yeah! Feedback. You’re good at that, finding the word. Apparently I can’t do that. Not like prof Ford is any better, though.” His hand is still buried in Dex’s hair, and Nursey scratches his scalp a little. “All red and white like a marked-up essay...bro, what’d you look like all marked up red and white?”

Dex picks the hand off his head. “Think it’s time you head back. You’ve had enough.”

Nursey keeps his grip on Dex’s hand. “Nah, bro, it’s chill. I—I’m chill.” Even his drunk brain recognizes the lie, but it comes out his mouth anyway. “Bro, Dex, my man. Your red hair is great. Your eyes, what the fuck, they’re like orange. You’ve got freckles all over. You have freckles all over? Do ya?”

“This is inappropriate,” Dex tells him, trying to lead him out of the Haus. The cold air might help sober him up a little. “You’re too drunk for metaphor right now.”

“Awe, Dexy, c’mon. It’s St. Patrick’s Day! Beer and green and leprechauns and shit! Wait, wait, Dex.” Nursey tugs Dex around to face him. Glassy eyes twinkling, he asks, “Are you Irish?” Then he breaks into a toothy grin and loops an arm around Dex’s shoulders, carefree and stumbling. Dex narrows his eyes at him, calculating how drunk Nursey is, exactly, and if he knows what he’s saying, and how badly what he’s saying is breaking Dex’s heart.

“I gotta go to sleep, probably. You’re right.” Nursey rarely admits to such things, but for Dex, he’s willing to make an exception. “How long’s patrol last, anyway? D’ya have to stay in my room with me?” He waggles his eyebrows at Dex suggestively, even though he’s too wasted to really look away from where he’s walking without stumbling.

Dex decides that the knotting in his stomach is from the soda bread mixing with the beer. “Nah, just till you’re safe in your dorm. Protocol.”

* * *

 

Dex falls into his own bed in his own dorm half an hour later and scrubs at his face with his hands. Nursey’s his soulmate. This is so, so great. Nursey, who can barely stop chirping him long enough for Dex to chirp back, who eats quinoa and kale and knows everything about the Harlem Renaissance and nothing about working a job instead of staring at the sky and writing stupid metaphors about dumb clouds. 

Nursey would have mentioned it if he knew, right? They’re not... _ that _ dysfunctional. Nursey flirts, like, all the time with him, but he’ll flirt with anyone who so much as looks at him, if only to fluster them. Because he’s so handsome that he can. God, whatever.

Dex climbs into bed and buries himself under a pile of quilts and dread.

He must fall asleep at some point, because when he wakes up the next day his phone is vibrating off the desk and his nose is so cold that he can’t feel it. 

The group chat is blowing up with chirps at Chowder for falling asleep on the couch and then Bitty mentions pancakes for breakfast and that’s a whole other mess. Dex rolls out of bed, straightens his shirt a little, throws on a flannel, and heads out.

It would be weird to check on Nursey, right? They might live in the same building but Dex isn’t his keeper and now he’s feeling a bit  _ weird _ and really, C could also get him no problem. 

Dex’s sense of duty wins out, because Chowder is most likely halfway to the Haus already, so he goes up a floor to knock on Nursey’s door, because it’s 9am on a Tuesday and he should be up by now anyway.

Nursey answers clearly straight out of bed, sleep-soft around the edges. His hair’s all flat on one side and Dex is honestly impressed that he managed to undress for bed the night before because Nursey is definitely only wearing boxers with ducks printed on. 

“What.” Nursey rubs at his eyes.

Dex isn’t sure that Nursey has seen him—his eyes haven’t really opened all the way yet. “Bitty’s making breakfast at the Haus and you’ve got class in that direction. Was wondering if you wanted someone to walk with.”

Nursey grunts and goes back into his room, leaving the door hanging open, so Dex invites himself in. It’s a disaster area, clothes and books strewn about and stacked on anything. There’s a dead plant in the window next to an empty fishbowl.

“Don’t you have a roommate?” Dex asks, picking his way around a cardboard box full of other boxes.

Nursey sniffs a wrinkled button-down. “He moved out after last semester. Too late for anyone to fill it up. ‘S probably for the better, considering.”

Dex can’t help himself. “Oh, so you  _ are _ aware that I can’t tell if your room has carpet or tile.”

Nursey doesn’t dignify that with a response, instead choosing to shrug on the shirt and tug on sweatpants in noble silence. He slips on Birks on his way out the door, grabs his satchel as well, and Dex is left scrambling behind him.

It’s a gorgeous morning, brisk and damp with dew. Nursey’s unbuttoned shirt billows around him in the cool wind.

“You’re not gonna button it?” Dex asks.

Nursey looks down at his exposed torso. “Why? Does it bug you?” He makes a face.

It  _ does _ , but not in the way Nursey thinks. Nursey probably thinks Dex is being a homophobic spoilsport piece of  _ garbage _ but really it’s just because Nursey is glowing too softly in the morning sun, despite his hangover. Let him wear his schlubby, off-the-floor clothes and leave Dex in peace,  _ please _ .

“Nah, it’s just a titty bit nipply out here. Kinda chilly for unbuttoned shirts.” Dex cuts a glance at Nursey, who’s side-eyeing him with equal slyness. Nursey’s visibly fighting a smile, which makes Dex grin widely.

Their shared good mood comes to a screeching halt the moment they enter the Haus. Its inhabitants are all crammed into the kitchen, hungover and cranky and despite all this still somehow ready to chirp. Ransom is plastered face down to the kitchen table while Bitty sluggishly but no less dutifully flips pancakes. Holster appears to be attempting to scry into his veritable jug of coffee he’s staring so deeply into it, and Lardo just glowers at the door. She might not actually be hungover, though—she’s just been scowling lately. Nursey thinks it has a lot to do with Shitty and Jack’s upcoming graduation but he might just be guessing.

Even Chowder is subdued. Farmer is perched on his lap, clutching her own mug of coffee while Chowder rubs her back. She glances up at Nursey and Dex when they file in, not hesitating a second when asking, “Get lucky last night, Nurse?” She eyeballs his unbuttoned shirt and overall disheveledness, then deliberately slides her gaze over to Dex. “I hear kissing someone Irish is good luck.”

Nursey sighs like it’s nothing, but Dex is rooted to the spot and absolutely paralyzed in terror. Also rage. “Fuck you,” he spits, “You know my family’s Scottish.”

Ransom sits up. “That’s not a no! Bros, congrats!”

“D-men make the best d-men, if you catch my drift,” Holster says plaintively into his coffee. 

Bitty flips a pancake. “Y’all want eggs? You’ll need protein if you were up all night.”

Jack, chopping fruit next to Bitty, jumps on that. “Bittle, that means you either need to up your protein intake or keep better hours.”

“Yeah, Bits, how am I supposed to sleep when I’m awoken in the wee hours of morning by the sweet, sensual scent of cinnamon and shortening?” Shitty asks from his spot leaning against the back windowsill.

While they’re distracted just for the moment by their chirping of Bitty, Nursey takes a pancake from the stack Bitty has assembled and makes a relieved face at Dex, who’s still shaken from Farmer’s comments. 

“Hey, Nurse,” he says, his voice pitched low so the rest of his team won’t hear him. “Can we go upstairs for a second?”

Nursey nods, wide-eyed and his mouth bulging with pancake. He follows Dex all the way up to Bitty’s room, where he shuts the door behind them. He tears another bite off of his pancake, and asks with his mouth full, “what’s up?”

Dex is standing in the center of the room, not really looking at Nursey, and Nursey can’t think of any reason why he’s being so weird. He watches Dex squeeze his eyes shut and then rub at them with his long fingers, and Nursey can’t help swallowing around his suddenly dry tongue. He’s out of seemingly nowhere reminded that Dex is probably his soulmate, that he  _ wants _ Dex in a way that’s somehow both friendship and also a fluttery feeling that he wants to be Dex’s favorite person, and more than all this, he wants Dex to feel the same way about him. 

Dex looks up and gives Nursey a tight smile. “You were a mess last night. I keep forgetting why we implemented Nursey Patrol.”

Nursey lets his mouth smile back. “Really? Honestly, I don’t remember much of anything after my last shot. I can usually manage more than two shots, though.”

“Oh, man, you definitely had more than two shots. Great, awesome. Cool. Anyway. Uh, you said some stuff. Stuff that I think we should talk about.” Dex looks like he’s in physical pain.

_ Oh _ . Nursey gets it. “Bro, I’m so sorry for whatever I said, like if I made you uncomfortable. I’ve just been like, frustrated lately. It doesn’t mean anything, you know? It’s totally chill.” Damn, he didn’t mean for that to sound as pathetic as it did.

“I did not need to know about your sexual frustration, dude,” Dex says, looking like he’s been asked to clean the freshman shower rooms with his toothbrush.

“It’s not like—” Nursey starts to protest. “Whatever. I said shit last night. Anything else you need to get off your chest?” Nursey just wants to leave now, go to class and then hide in his dorm for the rest of the semester and not have to talk to Dex about his loose fucking lips and inability not to be an embarrassing disaster.

“Yeah.” Dex takes a deep breath and lets it out agonizingly slowly. He looks him in the eye for the first time in their conversation, licks his lips, and says so measuredly, “I think you’re my soulmate.”

Okay, well, file under shit Nursey wasn’t expecting. He flounders for ten seconds, long enough for Dex to shift uncomfortably and try to take it back. “I mean—”

“What did I say? Last night?” Nursey asks, hushed.

Dex chuckles a bit. “Well, I think you were trying to flirt with me. It was really bad. Just, incredibly lame, poorly thought-out. I’m glad no strangers heard you floundering like that. Yeah, uh, you’ll never live that down.” He runs a hand through his hair, making it stand on end and then flattening it back down. “You, uh, also asked me if I was Irish, which you know I’m not, but I think you got caught up in the holiday and like the whole being drunk off your ass thing, so I’ve totally forgiven it and whatever so, yeah. You were messy, it was embarrassing for all parties involved, but it was just you and me and your dumb English major ass so we can forget it all ever happened.”

“Your words. ‘ _ Are you Irish?’  _ That’s me?” Nursey asks before Dex can try to run out of the room and they have to have this same conversation another time.

Dex rolls his eyes. “Yeah, of course it’s you. Of course that’s how I find out that you might be my soulmate. It’s the perfect combination of your lame charm and my petty rage about the not being Irish thing. Of course, right?” Dex is half-laughing, probably hysterical at this point, but Nursey is solemn still.

“Yeah, bro, I mean. Of course, right?” He raises his eyebrows beseechingly.

Dex’s face falls. “Shit. Those are your words. Right now? Was that it?”  
Nursey realizes that he doesn’t look as surprised/horrified as he would if this was the point at which he realized Dex was his soulmate. “Oh! Oh, no. That was like, a month ago. But—” haha, whoops! Shit.

“You’ve known for a  _ month!?” _ Dex’s voice rises in pitch but falls to a whisper. “And didn’t mention anything till you were so drunk you couldn’t remember it? When was it? For real.”

Nursey resigns himself to being upfront and honest because that’s what you do when you’re telling a person that you really like and maybe love that you really like and maybe love them. “It was my birthday. Valentine’s Day, whatever. You were pitching a fit about it and the world basically stopped spinning beneath me and everything got really quiet under the roaring in my ears and it was incredible and horrible and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else in the world but you. And then I left and ignored it all until right now, so thanks.”

Dex is still standing in the middle of Bitty’s cozy and bright room, Nursey right by the door. They can hear the noise downstairs of the team harassing each other over pancakes and coffee. The world around them hums and spins and Nursey can only seem to see Dex’s pulse jump in his neck and hear his breathing echo on the intake. 

“So we’re soulmates,” Dex says at long last.

“Each other’s,” Nursey elaborates.

“Smartass.”

Nursey waits another moment or two, savoring the thrill of fear and joy that hovers in the space between them, and then asks, “Are you okay with that?”

Dex blinks slow and smiles lazily. “Of course.” He takes a step in Nursey’s direction and Nursey stands closer to him as well, shortening the distance from weirdly far to friendly to personal.

Dex’s eyes are the exact same height as Nursey’s own, and Nursey can see himself reflected back in them, can watch the shape his own mouth moving when he asks, “Can I kiss you now?”

He feels more than sees Dex’s lips say “of course” against his own.

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this 4 months ago & knew it would be a gift but little did I know I'd have a gf to gift it to <3  
> also thank u linguistics for absolutely nothing except yeah that's a real citation in the summary and yes i hate me too  
> hmu on tumblr at peppermintlegs  
> thanks for reading ilyall


End file.
